Children's Home run by Reflexion Care Group Limited in Staffordshire

Inspection report children's home: 1227596 1 Registered provider: Reflexion Care Group Limited

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Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children's home

A private provider operates this home. The home is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to 3 children with adverse childhood experiences or learning disabilities.

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Information about this children's home

At the time of this inspection, 3 children were living in the home, who were all spoken to.

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Information about this children's home

The manager registered in July 2026 and is suitably experienced.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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good

How well children and young people are helped and protected good

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good

The effectiveness of leaders and managers good

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good

The children's home provides effective services that meet the requirements for good.

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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children's home: 1227596 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

10/03/2026 Full Good 05/03/2025 Full Good 21/02/2024 Full Good 07/02/2023 Full Good Inspection report children's home: 1227596 3

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Summary of findings

Children have positive day to day experiences and make progress. A stable staff team provide children with consistent routines, boundaries and care, which has helped children to feel safe and secure. All children said that they rate the home 10 out of 10 when discussing their experiences.

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Summary of findings

Staff are highly effective at keeping children safe. Incidents in the home are very rare. Children's risks have reduced and children are safer.

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Summary of findings

The registered manager has effective oversight of the home and ensures that staff have the knowledge and skills to meet children's needs. Staff morale and retention is good.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children receive good-quality, individualised care from a stable and nurturing staff team. Children have developed trusting relationships with staff and report that they feel safe living in the home. As a result, children enjoy positive day-to-day experiences and have made significant progress from their starting points.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children speak positively about their experiences of living in the home. They say that they feel safe and valued, and all children spoke highly of the care they receive. Furthermore, children who have left the home, stay in regular contact. This is testament to the enduring relationships children make with staff.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff place a high value on education and actively promote children's learning and achievements. All children are in full-time education, that meets their individual needs, with good attendance. Staff work closely with education providers and communicate with school staff daily. When children struggle to attend school, staff collaborate with education professionals to understand and remove barriers to children's learning. In addition, staff are creative and provide additional learning opportunities, with a weekly homework club. Children enjoy attending this and it supports their learning in a less formal setting.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff prioritise children's individual health needs. Managers ensure that staff are provided with training and clear guidance when children have complex health needs. They work in partnership with specialist external health professionals and the internal clinical team to ensure that all children's physical and emotional health needs are met. As a result, children are benefitting from improved health outcomes.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff support children to prepare for their futures and for moving on effectively. Staff help children to develop life skills, such as cooking and cleaning. Two of the children are planning to start semi- independence plans; helping them to learn valuable life and self- care skills and become more independent. Inspection report children's home: 1227596 4 Staff encourage children to take part in activities and develop their hobbies and interests. Children have enjoyed a range of activities over the summer holidays, including a caravan holiday, trips to theme parks and the seaside, a day sight seeing in London and a visit to a cat café. These positive experiences enable children to have fun, try new things, build relationships and make friends.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The home environment is well presented, providing a comfortable and homely feel for children. There are children's photos, and certificates of achievements throughout the home, and children's rooms are personalised to their own tastes, with family photos. Staff ensure that children participate in the decoration of the home. This encourages children to take a pride and ownership of their environment; contributing to their sense of belonging and stability in the home.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: good

Children benefit from effective safeguarding practice that promotes their safety and well- being. Staff understand and implement safeguarding procedures consistently. Due to the excellent relationships staff have with children, children's risks have significantly reduced, and incidents in the home are very rare.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: good

Staff know children extremely well. They understand children's risks, vulnerabilities and how to respond when children are feeling anxious, worried or scared. Staff use this knowledge and trauma informed practice to diffuse situations and prevent escalation. As a result, physical intervention has not been used or required.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: good

Managers and staff ensure that children are aware of the complaints procedure and meticulously follow up on children's concerns. This supports children to feel listened to and confident to raise concerns in the future.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: good

Staff ensure that children have lots of opportunities to discuss and learn about important topics such as online safety, health and nutrition, sexuality, bullying and relationships. Staff use a variety of formats and external resources to keep children interested. This support helps children to learn and understand how to keep themselves safer.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: good

Staff use praise and reward to reinforce positive behaviour from children. The use of consequences is rare and when used they are natural and restorative. This allows children to learn in a non-punitive way. However, there are no written records on the use of consequences, which is not in line with the home's policy. In addition, this impedes on the registered manager's ability to review whether consequences used are necessary and proportionate.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: good

In the main, children's written plans are comprehensive, regularly updated and provide staff with clear guidance to meet children's needs and manage vulnerabilities. However, some records used do not consistently reflect children's individual circumstances or the level of risk. While this recording shortfall has not had a negative impact on staff practice or children's care, it has the potential to do so. Inspection report children's home: 1227596 5

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Since the last inspection, there has been a change of management in the home. The new registered manager already worked in the home and was promoted into the registered manager role. This allowed for a seamless transition, ensuring continuity of care and reducing the impact on children and staff.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The registered manager is confident, ambitious and has developed a good understanding of the home's strengths and areas of development. She has high aspirations for children and inspires staff to provide good quality care to children. She knows the children extremely well, their achievements and challenges since moving into the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The registered manager has effective systems in place to monitor the quality-of-care that children receive. She uses internal and external audits, as well as home and workforce development plans to continuously develop the service, staff practice and the care that children receive.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The registered manager works hard to ensure that staff feel valued, supported and have opportunities to develop practice. Staff enjoy working in the home and say that teamwork is effective and the manager is supportive and approachable. Staff receive a robust induction, training, regular practice related supervision, annual appraisal and monthly reflective team meetings. In addition, the internal clinical lead completes a monthly reflective session, to discuss children. These support systems strengthen staff's understanding of the children and their ability to respond to children effectively.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The registered manager regularly uses research to strengthen staff practice. Monthly sessions in team meetings support staff to gain an understanding of their roles, tasks and children's experiences. For example, staff have used research to reflect on and implement more child focused rewards for children. Staff encourage children to participate in goal setting, which has made them more meaningful for children and is improving their outcomes.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The registered manager and staff have developed positive working relationships with broad range of external professionals. This ensures that children get the best possible all-round support needed to ensure progress in all areas of their development. Feedback from professionals was extremely positive. One professional said, 'staff provide stability and good quality care for children.' Inspection report children's home: 1227596 6

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Statutory requirements

This section sets out the actions that the registered person must take to meet the Care Standards Act 2000, The Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015 and the 'Guide to the Children's Homes Regulations, including the quality standards'. The registered person must comply within the given timescales.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must prepare and implement a policy ("the behaviour management policy") which sets out—

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Requirement Due date

how appropriate behaviour is to be promoted in the children's home; and

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Requirement Due date

the measures of control, discipline and restraint which may be used in relation to children in the home.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must keep the behaviour management policy under review and, where appropriate, revise it.

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Requirement Due date

within 24 hours of the use of a measure of control, discipline or restraint in relation to a child in the home, a record is made which includes—

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Requirement Due date

details of the child's behaviour leading to the use of the measure;

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Requirement Due date

the date, time and location of the use of the measure;

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Requirement Due date

a description of the measure and its duration;

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Requirement Due date

details of any methods used or steps taken to avoid the need to use the measure;

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Requirement Due date

the name of the person who used the measure ("the user"), and of any other person present when the measure was used;

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Requirement Due date

the effectiveness and any consequences of the use of the measure; and 14 October 2026 Inspection report children's home: 1227596 7 within 48 hours of the use of the measure, the registered person, or a person who is authorised by the registered person to do so ("the authorised person")—

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Requirement Due date

has spoken to the user about the measure; and

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Requirement Due date

has signed the record to confirm it is accurate; and

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Requirement Due date

within 5 days of the use of the measure, the registered person or the authorised person adds to the record confirmation that they have spoken to the child about the measure. (Regulation 35 (1)(a)(b) (2) (3)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)(iv)(v)(vi)(vii) (b)(i)(ii)(c))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the registered person must ensure that a record is made of any consequence imposed on a child. Records must clearly demonstrate that consequences are necessary, reasonable and proportionate.

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Recommendation

 The registered person should ensure that staff continually and actively assess children's risks and the arrangements in place to protect them. Where there are safeguarding concerns for a child, their placement plan, agreed between the home and their placing authority, must include details of the steps that staff will take to manage any assessed risks. In addition, recorded risk assessments should be succinct and reflective of children's current risks and vulnerabilities. ('Guide to Children's Homes Regulations', including the quality standards page 42, paragraph 9.5)

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Information about this inspection

Inspectors have looked closely at the experiences and progress of children and young people, using the social care common inspection framework. This inspection was carried out under the Care Standards Act 2000 to assess the effectiveness of the service, how it meets the core functions of the service as set out in legislation, and to consider how well it complies with The Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015 and the 'Guide to the Children's Homes Regulations, including the quality standards'. Inspection report children's home: 1227596 8

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Children's home details

Registered provider: Reflexion Care Group Limited

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Children's home details

Registered provider address: Fitzroy Academy, Cruckton, Shrewsbury SY5 8PR

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Inspector

Sonia Sullivan, Social Care Inspector Inspection report children's home: 1227596 9 achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children's social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children's services, and inspects services for children looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspector

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Inspector

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Inspector

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